Luxembourgish Small and Medium-Sized Towns in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities Ministère du Développement durable et des Infrastructures Luxemburg-Kirchberg TOWNs in Europe Loris Servillo Luxemburg, 12 December 2014
Outline 1. SMSTs in the EU territory 2. General vs specific trends? 3. Evidences for more appropriated policies - do we need to go beyond the large-city bias in (EU) urban policy?
What is a town? Linguistic differences and translating problems A dichotomy not always present in each national/lingustic context: town – city, ville – cité, paese(?) – citta’, ortschaft – stadt Otherwise urban condition generally addressed as ciudad, mesto, etc.. A semantic ambiguity: small, intermediate, local…
What is a town? An empirical and territorialist approach (Brenner & Schmid, 2013) Functional Morphological Administrative interpretation interpretation interpretation
Terms Definitions Distinctive characteristics Criteria Main territorial trends or observations Built up area (area with Concentration of buildings Compact build-up area urban physical (distinction from open spaces) Distance between settlements and Morphological Urban settlement characteristics) of a and population (above minimal buildings definition minimum population threshold) Population size Density of urbanised area Local government with urban administrative duties and Local government Administrative Settlement with urban Urban municipality responsibilities and territory / administrative functions definition administrative status boundary containing urban Historical attribution settlements Urban settlement Population Role of centre for region due to functional (municipality) with Jobs concentration of jobs and other Urban centre / urban core definition concentration of jobs, Other urban functions urban functions attracting services and other urban Commuting commuters and visitors functions Centrality Larger area with Access to jobs and services Gravitational area of jobs, functional relationship Home-work commuting Urban functional region services and other functions with one or more urban Home-service commuting located in urban core(s) cores
What is a town? Complexity and institutional diversity across Europe concerning the relationship between administrative and morphological definitions Not only a technical aspect: - Data issue (thus) - Policy issue
Challenges for an ESPON project policy recommendations based on evidences concerning spatial dynamics and correlation of factors. Operative questions • What is a small and medium-sized town? • What interpretative approach? • What data are available for comparison?
What have we done in TOWN? ESPON terms of reference (in line with DG Regio – OECD): Towns: settlements with 5-50,000 inhabitants Athens (from: Cities in Europe: the new OECD-EC definition, Dijkstra & Poelman, 2011)
What have we done in TOWN? Small and medium-sized towns
Morphological analysis
Morphological interpretation ‘Urban polygons’ identified as separate built-up areas with • population size and density consistently with criteria set by DG Regio / OECD • Focus on Small and Medium sized towns
Morphological interpretation
Morphological interpretation
Dimension of population in smaller settlements as % of Av. Av. Total pop. in Classes Delimitation criteria Count Av. Pop ESPON Sq.km Density this class space* High-density Pop. > 50,000 Urban Clusters Pop. Density > 1,500 850 275,476 92.3 2,927.10 234,154,670 46.3% (HDUC) inh/km2 Pop > 50,000, Large SMST Pop. Density < 1,500 100 132,331 101.8 1,299.6 13,233,142 2,6% inh/km2 25,000 < Pop < 50,000, Medium SMST Pop. Density > 300 966 35,163 19.7 2,060.59 33,967,357 6.7% inh/km2 5,000 < Pop < 25,000, Small SMST Pop. Density > 300 7348 10,242 7.6 1,470.09 75,254,510 14.9% inh/km2 Pop. < 5,000 Very Small Pop. Density > 300 69,043 1,193 1.7 699.3 82,376,586 16.3% Towns (VST) inh./km2 * including EU 27+ Iceland, Norway, Lichtenstein, Switzerland
EU perspective Settlement polygons NUTS3 with prevailing settlements Largest share of pop. lives in HDUC Largest share of pop. lives in SMST Largest share of pop. lives in VST Largest share of pop. lives in other settlements
EU perspective Settlement polygons NUTS3 with prevailing settlements
Regional typology based on population change rates 2001- 2011 as a difference from the EU-27 average
Regional typology based on population change rates 2001- 2011 as a difference from the national average
Regional typology based on p.c. GDP change rates 2001-2011 as a difference from the EU-27 average
Regional typology based on p.c. GDP change rates 2001-2011 as a difference from the national average
General reflections – trends in Europe • Do SMSTs across Europe present ‘ common trends ’? Importance of macro spatial trends • Regions with smaller settlements may have less inertial capacity to bounce them back Combination of macro/meso dynamics and local trajectories • Socio-spatial configurations with a specific regional dependency (e.g. surrounding larger urban regions) • High variety of socio-economic performances (much higher than larger urban areas) • EU/National policies matter?
Towns vs large cities? Functional identification of urban systems and their cores Agglomerated Networked Criteria: - Travel-to-work patterns Isolated - Location of services
Catalonia Slovenia Czech Republic Flanders
Towns vs large cities? networked large cities agglomerated autonomous 1,4 1,3 1,2 1,1 emp 1 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,6 pop
Regional clusters Net migration by country Migration- Growing Migration- Growing enhanced enhanced aging? aging? A B H C Labour Shrinking exporters G D Shrinking Labour exporters F E
Clusters of problem sets Do SMSTs across Europe face ‘common problems’? • Social and economic problems for SMSTs are only ‘common’ in an abstract sense • In practice the ‘problems’ of towns are mainly framed by: their national/regional context spatial type (coastal, mountain, post-industrial, etc.) (clusters of ‘problem-sets’)
29
30
Socioeconomic profiling of SMSTs: Ieper (B) Residential economy: Ieper: Number of jobs by economic • Centre of the Westhoek (commercial, profile services of general interest) 20000 • Tourism and recreation – war peace 15000 N of jobs tourism and rural tourism 10000 5000 Productive economy (> Flemish avg) : 0 2001 2010 • Agriculture + processing industries Residential Economy 3254 11973 Productive Economy 5096 4391 • some multinational companies Knowledge Economy 7568 2180 (Picanol, McBright) Knowledge economy • Flanders Language Valley (Lernaut & Hauspie) went bankrupt in 2001 -> search for new functions
Socioeconomic profiling of SMSTs: Aarschot (B) Aarschot: Number of jobs by economic Residential economy: profile • Central function within the 10000 arrondissement: schools, 9000 8000 commercial centre 7000 N of jobs 6000 Productive economy: 5000 4000 • Strongly shrinked 3000 2000 1000 Knowledge Economy: 0 2001 2010 • Shrinked, but ongoing strategies Residential Economy 2584 5717 to capitalize on proximity to Productive Economy 3545 1722 Knowledge Economy 2644 1752 Leuven
Socioeconomic profiling of SMSTs: Dendermonde (B) Dendermonde: Number of jobs by economic profile Residential economy: 16000 • Centrum function within the 14000 arrondissement: schools, 12000 juridical functions, commercial N of jobs 10000 8000 centre 6000 Productive economy: 4000 2000 • Strongly shrinked 0 2001 2010 Knowledge Economy: Residential Economy 2977 9758 Productive Economy 4390 3146 • very important downfall between Knowledge Economy 6184 2236 2001 and 2011
Summing up Some evidence: • Settlements agglomerated in larger metropolitan areas are destabilised • on the one hand by suburbanisation, and • on the other hand by a re-concentration of jobs and services in cities • Successful cases are those one strategically working on diversification and innovation • Evidence suggest the presence of integrated territorial systems , in which urban areas are tightly integrated and complementing each others
Socio-economic and administrative issues On average, SMSTs (in database) are different from large cities on a range of socio-economic issues • greater proportion of industrial employment; • A significantly smaller proportion of jobs (on average) in private marketed services and in public services in comparison to HDUCs; • more self-employment, less diverse in sectorial mix ‘All’ Small towns (N=1339) Small towns Small towns in NW Italy in Slovenia
Preliminary results Warning message?
Recommend
More recommend
